TEACHERS hit back at a charity yesterday for suggesting that parents should be given a legal right to intervene in failing schools and the power to sack headteachers.

The idea would “damage” children’s education and could force schools to be downgraded to academies, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) warned.

The New Schools Network (NSN), which champions the Tory government’s disastrous “free school” model, called for the creation of a “parental trigger” which would supposedly drive up academic standards.